Advice & Resources

The money saver’s guide to finding replacement taps

Good quality taps are expensive. Finding the right one for the right price is a tricky business – you don’t want to have to replace it again anytime soon.

The price generally determines the robustness and longevity of the tap and it’s internal parts – go for an inexpensive tap and it’s likely to break sooner. You’ll also have problems finding replacement parts for it – cheap taps are generally a false economy.

Another factor that determines price is whether the tap is WRAS approved.

So with a myriad of options and your hard-earned cash at stake, how do you find a tap that looks and works the same without spending hours trawling around bathroom shops and spending a fortune?

Here’s our step-by-step guide to finding your perfect tap for the right price.

1. First things first, what kind of tap is it?

You need to know what kind of tap it is to help you look for it online.

Take a photo of the tap & save the photo to your computer

Click on the tap images that are similar to yours to find out more

This is a great starting point for understanding the tap you have – you may have no idea of the style or name, so by clicking on the various tap images you’ll start to get an idea of whether it’s ‘contemporary’, ‘classic’, ‘pillar’ or ‘mixer’ etc.

Seek out taps that are made by the well-known brands

Well known tap brands include Bristan, Crosswater, Ultra, and Grohe. Selecting from these manufacturers will help to ensure that you’re getting a good quality tap.

2. I’ve found a tap I like. How do I make sure I’m getting the best price?

Type the name of the tap into google

Make sure you use the manufacturer’s product title as you’ll see more results.

Click on the ‘shopping’ link at the top of the page

I like to change the view to ‘list’ as I find it easier to see the options. List view can be found to the right of the page.

Select the tap from the list

Google will show you a summary of shops that you can purchase the item from. Don’t assume that the one that’s highlighted is the best price – in the example below, google shows the heatandplumb.com option with the most prominence, but to the right, you can see that Tapstore has the item cheaper.

Saying this, be wary of high delivery charges and potentially worse customer service levels with retailers who have the lowest price.

3. I’ve chosen my tap and have a potential retailer in mind. How do I make further savings?

Try Amazon

Amazon is usually a good first port of call. However, a lot of the smaller online plumbing retailers aren’t listed (amazon listing fees for retailers are pretty high) so you’re not always guaranteed to find the item you’re looking for.

Use cashback sites

Cashback sites like Quidco and TopCashback take the commission they make on a sale and give it directly to you, the customer. This means that you can save anywhere from 1% to 20%.

Visit the cashback site and look for the supplier you’ve chosen, to see whether they’re listed. Alternatively, type the name of the tap directly into the cashback site search bar to see if you can find it that way.

Look for discount codes

If an online retailer has a section or a button in their checkout that says ‘apply code’ or ‘apply promotion’ then you know that they have the ability to offer discount codes. Now you just have to find them!

I generally stop at the checkout, open another tab in my browser and type the name of the retailer plus the phrase ‘discount code’.

excellent service, friendly staff, clean and efficient work. Appointment times adhered to and arranged earlier visit, even though parts had to be ordered. Prices very competitive and charged as quoted.
Have recommended to friends and have no hesitation to recommend to others.read more

My autistic son has quite severe issues with people entering his property, but trusts Dennis as he has done work on my son's home before. Hazel made the arrangements and was really supportive and Dennis came to do the work and was as professional and friendly with my son as he has been on previous occasions (extremely). Neither I, nor my son, would hesitate to recommend Pipe Dreams to anyone.read more